


likely one of us will have to spend some days alone

by lucifucker



Series: maybe we'll get forty years together [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Loss, No Smut, author prides himself on encyclopedic knowledge of the skellige isles, big plans, but just u wait kids i got big plans, lambert eskel and vesemir are barely there for this one but again, no beta we die like vesemir, self destructive behavior, show and game lore, this time, unsafe monster hunting practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23011693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucifucker/pseuds/lucifucker
Summary: “Well, that was—“ The bard blinks, huffs a laugh, runs his fingers through his hair and rubs his mouth. “That was the most enthusiastic first meeting I think I’ve ever had, my good man, who exactly are you?”“Jaskier.” His world is frozen. His earth has stopped turning. Jaskier looks up at him with no trace of understanding in his eyes and shakes his head.“Who’s Jaskier?”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Triss Merigold, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: maybe we'll get forty years together [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619125
Comments: 34
Kudos: 795





	likely one of us will have to spend some days alone

Geralt watches Jaskier from the fireside, mouth watering as the bard stretches languidly across the bedrolls, shifting and elongating his muscles with feline grace as he works his way toward being fully awake. 

“You’ll stay here.” He clarifies for what must be the hundredth time if Jaskier’s long-suffering groan is anything to go by. 

“Yes, Geralt.” A huff and Jaskier is pushing himself into a sitting position, pulling the blankets up around his bare shoulders. “I will stay here while you clear out the manor _alone_.” The emphasis on the last word isn’t a mistake and Geralt shoots him a look which Jaskier returns in kind, deeply unimpressed. “I will not leave camp, even though it would make _more sense_ —ah, ah!“ He tuts, holding up a finger when Geralt opens his mouth to reply. “For me to go into town to replace our pot while you’re gone. I will stay here and wait like a besotted maiden for your heroic return because of the very scary Nilfgardian faction making its way through the area.” 

Something warm and gentle curls in Geralts chest as Jaskier’s indignant rant concludes, and he paces over and settles beside him on the bedrolls.

“I’ll get the pot.” He offers, softly, holding out a chunk of dried meat. A peace offering. Jaskier glowers at him for another moment and then deflates, accepts it and leans into his side, head resting against Geralt’s shoulder. 

“And I’m not helpless, you know! I killed that—that—“ Hands waving aimlessly in the air, he flounders for a name for the enormous centipedal creature from Crows Perch. 

“Thing.” Geralt supplies, helpfully, and Jaskier nods. 

“I killed that thing.” He says, proudly, and Geralt can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips. 

“You did.” Jaskier sighs and takes a sullen bite of the meat. He’s silent for a while, chewing thoughtfully as Geralt indulges his whim and strokes soothing fingers through the bard’s tousled hair. 

“I hate not knowing if you’re safe.” He finally mutters, and Geralt wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him close, slow heart stuttering with the weight of feeling pressing down on it. 

“I know.” 

“So you’d best come back to me in one piece, Geralt of Rivia, or there’ll be hell to pay.” 

“I know.” Jaskier shifts in his hold, looks up to meet his eye for a moment and seems satisfied with what he sees there, presses a long kiss to Geralt’s cheek. 

“Be safe, my love.” He murmurs, fingertips stroking over Geralt’s jaw, and Geralt exhales slowly and nods. “Bring back coin and food.” 

“And the pot.” Geralt whispers, catching Jaskier’s lips with his own.

“And the pot.” 

When he leaves camp an hour later, chest feeling oddly warm and fresh bruises marking his throat, he thinks _lets get this over with._

_I’ve got a bard waiting for me at home._ Because home is, well. 

Where Jaskier is. 

—

It takes longer than expected. The wraiths at Reardon manor are old, powerful creatures with a strong tie to their land. It's hours of finishing one and then stowing himself in the forest to shovel down handfuls of dried fruit before attracting the attention of the next, and all told by the time he’s done the sun, which had been high in the sky when he arrived, is sinking below the horizon. 

He’s exhausted, barely keeping his eyes open as he hoists himself back onto Roach, but he can’t stop. It’s too dangerous to meditate here, even if his body is screaming for rest, and a voice in the back of his head tells him if he leaves Jaskier for too long he’s bound to wind up in trouble. 

Later, when he stands in the ruined remains of their camp and holds Jaskier’s broken lute in his hands, he thinks back to that little voice. As he falls to his knees in the spot where he’d left his bard that morning, he lets out a sound not unlike an animal and thinks _if only he had listened sooner._

—

It’s too quiet. That’s the first thought Geralt has when they get inside. There should be some sound, marching feet, arguing soldiers, breathing, even, but there’s nothing. 

It had taken a week, a _week_ , to get in touch with Vernon and find out where the local Nilfgardian faction had made their camp. The ruins of some old castle, probably one they’d burnt and looted themselves, hidden away from main roads in a thick nestle of trees. Yen’s been patient with him, patient in a way she generally isn’t, and Geralt thinks maybe the wish at least gave them this, the ability she seems to have to look at him and simply read his mind instead of asking what he needs. By day they had scoured the land side by side looking for Roche, and by night she had slept, making no comment on the silent vigil he kept, nor the lack of food or drink he consumed. 

“This isn’t right.” Geralt growls as he blasts the first door open, and Yennefer nods. 

“Roche and Ves said this place was crawling with guards.” She replies, waves a hand through the air and closes her eyes. “But there’s only one being here. Down below.” Geralt casts around, concentrating his senses until he can hear the single heartbeat coming from the lower level. 

He says nothing as he springs the trapdoor beneath them open, forgoes the ladder and jumps down instead, desperation making him sloppy as he lands in a crouch in the dark. He looks up, hand on his sword, and there he is. 

Jaskier stands, bruised and filthy, before him, an empty cell with an open door barely lit behind him. His tunic is torn, there’s dried blood on his cheek, but he’s hale, healthy, there’s a pink flush in his cheeks and a glint in his eyes and Geralt _found him._

He can’t think, just stumbles forward and pulls the bard into his arms. He crushes Jaskier to his chest with an exhale of stale air from frozen lungs, can’t move but for to hold him, can’t _breathe_ except to inhale his scent. He tries to speak but no words will come, no sound escapes him. 

An acrid smell hits his nostrils and he draws back sharply, releases Jaskier as though he’s been burned when he realizes what it is. He takes a step back, another, heart stuttering in his chest when Jaskier doesn’t follow, doesn’t reach out.

“Well, that was—“ The bard blinks, huffs a laugh, runs his fingers through his hair and rubs his mouth. “That was the most enthusiastic first meeting I think I’ve ever had, my good man, who exactly are you?” 

“Jaskier.” His world is frozen. His earth has stopped turning. Jaskier looks up at him with no trace of understanding in his eyes and shakes his head. 

“Who’s Jaskier?” It’s like a sliver of ice in his chest. It’s like his slow heart has been forced to stop. He keeps backing up until a gentle hand presses his back, and Yennefer stills him and walks by, her expression set. 

“Hello, Julian. My name is Yennefer.” She says, and her face is drawn but her voice is anything but even. 

“Do I know you?” Jaskier doesn’t move away but he doesn’t move closer either as she stops a few feet from him. “Who’s Julian?"

“You should.” She replies, smoothly ignoring his second question, and reaches out one hand, palm up, toward him. “May I?” Jaskier eyes her hand suspiciously for a second, and then shrugs and takes it in his own, looking at her expectantly. Yennefer goes silent, eyes moving behind closed lids, Jaskier’s gaze seeming to lose focus as she works. Slowly, as the seconds drag by, her normally schooled features begin to twist, her eyebrows furrowing in what Geralt has come to recognize as sorrow.

“Yen.” He growls, and feels something pained and sharp rise in his chest when she doesn’t answer. “ _Yennefer_ , talk to me."

“He—he knew they’d enter his mind.” She whispers, voice laced with anguish. “He heard them—say Fringilla was on her way. He knew we wouldn’t be safe while he knew where we were, so he brewed a potion with what was in his bag.” Geralt’s eyes flash to the abandoned cell but there is no bag to be seen in the tiny room. Jaskier looks at Yennefer confusedly but doesn’t protest when she continues. “He—Geralt.” She turns, looks at him, violet eyes filled with tears. “He erased his memory. He—he made himself forget you, so they couldn’t find you through him.” 

“He—“ Geralt distantly hears himself choke off, and there’s something he can’t name clogging his throat as Jaskier peers at him over her shoulder. “He doesn’t know me.” 

“Should I?” Jaskier asks, his blue eyes bright and curious, face open and honest, and Geralt can’t. 

He turns, scales the ladder and strides through the keep, doesn’t stop until he’s outside, until he’s in the empty courtyard beneath the stars. He can’t feel his body, it’s almost as though he’s floating above it. His knees hit the ground. His lungs cannot move to bring him air. He can’t cry, he doesn’t know how. He _can’t_ cry, he doesn’t know _how._

_“Geralt.”_ Yennefer is saying, and when did she get here? “ _Geralt, look at me_.” 

“He smelled like fear.” He knows he’s speaking because he can hear his own voice but he can’t recall moving his mouth. “He was afraid of me.” 

She’s silent, perhaps for moments, perhaps for hours. When she does speak her voice is so soft it almost breaks him. 

“You’ve never smelled that on him, before.” She murmurs, and he thinks he nods. “Because he’s never been afraid of you, before.” She smooths her hand up his back, rests it between his shoulders. “He says the first thing he remembers is waking up in his cell. The soldiers asked him some questions about you and left when they realized what he’d done.” 

“Why’d they leave him.” 

“Perhaps they knew you’d come.” Her fingertips stroke over his hair, soothing. “Perhaps they thought they would be safer if you found him like this. He’s sleeping.” She supplies when he stiffens. “He’ll wake when I tell him to. We need to get him back to Kaer Morhen.” Her voice is fading again, he’s losing track of her touch, and her fingers dig in for the briefest moment. “Stay with me. I can’t carry him on my own.” 

Under her guiding hand, he climbs back down the ladder, gathers the sleeping body in his arms, and walks through the portal she conjures. 

—

When he steps into the great hall of Kaer Morhen, she directs him up to the tower, and he deposits Jaskier on the bed at the top. He can’t help the decades-old instinct to adjust him, to angle his head where his neck won’t be stiff when he wakes, to brush his hair from his forehead. 

He cups Jaskier’s cheek with his palm and finds that he cannot pull away, struck and halted by the juxtaposition of finding his bard only to lose him at the same time. 

“He can remember.” Yennefer says, softly, hovering at the bedside. “Vesemir and I will figure out what he made, what he took.” Geralt looks at Jaskier’s slack, perfect face, at his limp hands, at the tear in his tunic. He pulls back. Walks away. Doesn’t turn around when she calls after him. 

When he reaches the foot of the winding stairs, he crosses to the opposite wall and sinks to the floor, unable to push that _smell_ from his mind. 

He can’t cry. He doesn’t know how.

—

They orbit him like planets, three witchers and a mage while he waits for a bard to remember he is a bard. 

Vesemir tells him, “Remember what you were taught.” _Witchers don’t feel_. That’s what the humans say. If only they knew. “You have to maintain control, Geralt. If you lose it, there’ll be no going back. You have to _hope_.” But hope tastes bitter on his tongue, always has, and now the sting is too great to bear. 

Yennefer tells him, “I can fix it. I can fix it. I just need time.” But time is the one thing he and Jaskier have never had. 

Lambert and Eskel sit on either side of him in the great hall, a bottle of Temerian rye passed between them, and talk about hunts and humans and the forktails that are pushing their luck trying to move in toward the keep. 

None of it changes anything. Jaskier wakes day after day and looks at Geralt like he’s a stranger. 

“Yennefer says we traveled together.” He says one day over breakfast. “What was it like?” _It was everything_ , Geralt wants to say, _it was beautiful,_ but when he opens his mouth that reeking, rotting smell hits him again and he chokes on his words. 

“Fine.” He manages to mutter, and then he’s shoving his half-empty plate at Lambert with numb hands and leaving the table, silent, behind him. 

_It was everything._

Now it’s gone. 

—

The ways in which he is the same are more painful than those in which he is different, and when Geralt catches him tiptoeing across the top of the outer wall like a _child_ something angry and afraid wells up inside him. 

“Come down.” He grunts, fighting to keep his voice even, and Jaskier turns, meets his eyes, something alighting in his gaze even as he misses his footing, even as he slips and _falls_ —

Geralt catches him with a hand clamped around his arm, drags him back to the safety of the ground and holds him there with fear drumming at his chest. 

“ _Fuck_ , Jaskier, you have to be _careful._ ” He hisses, fingers tightening instinctively, and against his better judgment adds, more softly, “Please.” The bard gazes up at him with nothing but questions in his eyes and Geralt grits his teeth and forces himself to walk away. 

He makes it to the top of the wall, needing to escape but lacking the strength to leave, and gazes at the stretch of forest, wonders _should I?_

_Should I go?_

“I’m sorry.” A voice behind him says, and Geralt whirls around to find him standing on the parapet, anxiously wringing his hands. 

“Why?” He finds himself asking, heart aching, lungs palpitating. Jaskier swallows, and takes a small step closer. 

“It—it seems like you cared about me quite a bit.” He says, haltingly. “I’m sorry I don’t…remember you.” A smile, little and wry, crosses his face. “I certainly wish I did.” 

“Why?” Geralt asks, again, and Jaskier looks at him with wide, blue eyes, an expression he hasn’t seen in an _age_ , and shrugs. 

“Because I think I’d like very much to know you.” He says, simply, as though it’s _simple_. “Because I see that you’re hurting and there’s something inside me that tells me I can fix it but I don’t know how.” 

Geralt takes a halting step forward, and Jaskier looks up at him, and for one brief, anguished moment Geralt smells it again. The anxiety. The fear. He freezes, closes his eyes, turns back around. 

“I’m fine.” He says. The wind is cool on his cheek. Jaskier’s scent is blown away. “I don’t need your help.” 

The thought comes to him, unbidden, as the bard walks sullenly away from him, as his footsteps fade and he descends from the parapet, that perhaps its better this way. 

He thinks of Jaskier coughing up blood with a djinn lodged in his throat, of Jaskier looking at him with wide eyes and tear stained cheeks while doppler blood drips from his own hands, of Jaskier’s body sagging against his as magic beyond either of them sapped their strength. He thinks about the grave he will one day stand over and the life that will one day leave those cornflower eyes. 

Perhaps it’s better he not know. 

Perhaps its best to let him go. 

—

Vesimir calls him a coward. Lambert calls him a fool. Eskel doesn’t even look at him when he says his goodbye, just shakes his head and keeps working on his potions like Geralt’s not there. 

“You’re making a mistake.” Yen tells him, watching as he readies Roach’s saddlebags, checks her hooves. “When I fix it—“ 

“ _If_ you fix it,” He cuts in, and ignores the swelling pain in his chest, the bone-deep knowledge that it cannot be _fixed,_ “And if you—can’t, then.” The words are clogging his throat but he soldiers on. “Then he’ll be better off.” 

“Geralt—“ She starts, but he shakes his head. 

“He’s only like this because of me.” He spits, and pulls himself up into the saddle, curls his hands around the reins and wonders how far he can ride before Roach can’t go on. Wonders how many miles he can put between them. How far he’ll have to go for Jaskier to be safe. “At least this way I can’t—“ _Hurt him, lose him, kill him,_ “Get in the way.” 

“He won’t be happy.” She says, simply, grabs the reins and holds him in place so he has to look at her as she speaks. “He might be safe, and secure, healthy and hale, but he’ll never be happy. He’ll know something’s missing. He knows _now_.” 

“Better that than dead.” He grunts, and tugs until she lets go, urges Roach forward and rides away and doesn’t look back when she calls his name, desperate, clinging, pleading. Colors he’s never seen on her and doesn’t wish to learn. 

_It’s better,_ he thinks, even as his traitorous heart aches in his chest, _it’s better this way._

—

To travel alone is torture. 

He thinks of Jaskier always, in his mornings, in his evenings, in his battles and in his sleep. He drifts across the continent for the first two months, throwing himself headfirst into drowner nests and wraith-infested ruins until he no can no longer force himself to keep going and makes his way to Skeilige. 

The mountain trails, the endless forests filled with their myriad of beasts and monsters force him moment by moment to forget, but it never lasts. He sups with Crach and doesn’t miss the pity in his eyes when he asks where Jaskier’s gone. He leaves Roach safely sequestered at Kaer Trolde and walks the vast expanse of Ard Skellige on foot, seeking harpies and wyvern, giants and endregas. 

When that grows old he swims through icy waters to Undvik, then Spikeroog, his muscles screaming their protest, his empty belly aching for food he refuses to eat. In Svorlag he takes his pay for killing a cyclops in the form of a boat and sails to Hindarsfjall, spends weeks meditating in Freyas garden under the watchful eye of her priestesses. Nothing soothes him. Nothing helps. 

Fifteen years with Jaskier by his side and he’s grown spoilt, wanting. The extra bedroll sits forgotten in the saddlebag in Crach’s stables, the silence when he deigns to rest is deafening. _I love you knowing I’ll lose you_ , he had said, but never in all his nightmares had he dreamed of _this._

He thinks of drowning but remembers the river outside Crow’s Perch, the water pouring from his lungs as Jaskier slammed his chest again, and again. He thinks of tearing himself open but remembers a fiend that wasn’t a fiend and Jaskier’s hands covering the scars on his arms, remembers _absolutely not_ and _never that_. 

He can’t cry, he doesn’t know how, but when the weight of the knowledge that these memories are only _his,_ now, that he shares them with _no-one_ and _nothing_ hits him he thinks perhaps he comes close. 

The wind howls through Larvik but he does not pull his cloak tighter. The sun rises but he the light does not warm him.

_I can’t lose you_ , Jaskier had said. 

_You didn’t, bard._

_I did._

—

Returning to Novigrad feels like walking into a mausoleum. 

Each street and alley, each square and corner and brothel reminds him of Jaskier. He sees him everywhere, laughing as he performs at the Rosemary and Thyme, haggling over fish prices at the docks, grinning across a table of cards at the Kingfisher with that winning glint in his eye because he _cheats_ , he always cheats. Tries tells him it’s masochism and he can’t help but agree. 

“You should go back.” She says, sincerely, tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear and blinks away her tears, always so ready to feel for others, even for him. “If anyone can cure him it’s Yen.” 

“I can’t.” He tells her. “He—“ His words stifle themselves in his throat. “The way he looks at me.” She nods, ever understanding, always loving, and pours him another glass of Kawedian. 

“You should go back.” She repeats as he chugs it down, smiles fondly with a far-off look in her eye. “When he remembers, he’ll be furious that you’re gone.” 

“If he remembers.” He corrects, and sorrow melts across her lovely face. 

“He will.” She insists, and he wishes he could force his fool heart to believe her. 

—

It happens like a dream. 

He leans against Roach’s flank as he wipes black blood from Fate’s blade, _a witcher’s blade is his life_ Vesemir whispers _respect it._ His hands are cracked and dry, his armor filthy and in need of repair, but his swords, at least, must be clean. 

A cracking sound from the brush to his left startles him from his reverie and he stands, fingers curling iron-tight around Fate’s hilt, drops into ready stance as something— _someone—_ comes stumbling out of the darkness between the trees, and suddenly everything stops. 

Time slows to a crawl, the earth tilts on its axis. Birds cease their chirping and crickets go silent in the wood as Geralt meets bright blue eyes for the first time since June. He’s angry, furious, chest heaving and brows drawn, his doublet is purple, his hair is windswept and longer than when Geralt left him. He’s _beautiful_. 

“You _son of a bitch_.” Fate clatters to the ground as Jaskier stalks forward, as strong hands, musician’s hands, curl iron-tight around the front of his armor, dragging him forward, forcing him to catch himself on the bard’s sturdy shoulders. “You _bastard,_ do you know how long it took me to _find you?_ ” 

“Jaskier—“ Geralt starts, chokes off when those lute-calloused fingers reach his skin. 

“You left.” Jaskier’s hand is a vise around the back of his neck, and he is _shaking_ with savage indignation, he is _snarling_ against Geralt’s lips, and Geralt can’t _breathe_. “You _left_ and you didn’t _tell me_.” 

“ _Jaskier—“_ They are kissing and it is teeth and tongues and Jaskier’s hand is on his throat and Jaskier is pushing him, and pushing him, until his back hits the nearest tree with a _thud._

_“_ You thought I’d be _better off?_ ” Jaskier’s fingers curl into his hair _tight_ and for one awful second he is back at the fire, he is back in his feverish body and hands that are meant to hold him are holding him down, but then Jaskier rests his forehead against Geralt’s chin and stills, whispers, his voice small, “You thought I wouldn’t _know_?”

Suddenly, as though remembering to breathe, he slides his arms _home_ around Jaskier’s waist, crushes him against his chest like he did all those weeks ago. Jaskier is so warm, so solid against him, every inch of him thrumming with adrenaline, with fading rage. He ducks his head and buries his nose in his hair, inhales that summer flower scent. 

“ _Dandelion_.” He breathes, and Jaskier shudders against him. 

“You _left me_.” His voice is low and rough and laced with hurt, his fingers press against Geralt’s neck as he noses against his cheek. “How could you _leave me.”_

“I wasn’t—I couldn’t--” Geralt finds himself stuttering, though he can barely recall choosing to speak. “You didn’t know me, you were hurt because of _me_ , you—“ He’s never hyperventilated before, he’s not sure if he can, but he thinks this may be as close as he comes, each breath catching in his chest. “You were _afraid_ of me _._ ” Jaskier’s face falls, his eyes are full of _tragedy_ and _sorrow_ and _longing_. 

Geralt’s traitorous hands shake as he cups Jaskier’s cheeks, his slow heart skips beat after beat when he buries his face in the crook of the bard’s neck, inhales deep that dandelion scent, no stink of fear to be found there. He doesn’t know when his legs give out, when he sinks down to the ground, too lost in the feeling of Jaskier _here_ and _real_ in his arms to think of anything else. He can’t smell fear but he can smell _hurt_ , betrayal, deep and acrid in his nostrils and his lungs spasm in his chest. 

“I’m sorry.” He manages to choke out, lets himself shiver when those clever fingers stroke through his grimy hair, when those full lips press to his temple. “Don’t—“ And he thought he’d gotten used to being unable to draw breath but this is something different, something _new_. “Don’t leave. I—“ Shaking his head, trying, desperately, to burrow closer, to hold tighter, as though if he clings hard enough he can push away his wrongs, erase his mistakes. “I’ll be better, please, just—“ 

“Geralt.” Jaskier’s voice is smooth like white honey, his heart beats like hummingbirds wings beneath Geralt’s fingers, his palms are tender where they frame Geralt’s face. “ _Breathe_.” And, for what feels like the first time in _months,_ Geralt does, shaky inhales and exhales that Jaskier soothes him through with gentle hands on his back, his shoulders, his jaw. “I’m angry with you.” He says, after a time, his tone almost contemplative were it not for the layer of iron that laces beneath it. “I’m furious, in fact, I can’t think of a time I’ve ever _been_ this angry.” Drawing back, Jaskier cups Geralt’s cheeks between warm palms and forces amber eyes to meet his own. “But no matter how angry I am, no matter how _stupid_ you have been, I will never, _never_ leave you.” 

“I did.” He blurts. Shame is a familiar feeling but that doesn’t make it hurt less. “I—“ _Left you alone._

_“_ You did.” Jaskier murmurs, thumbs along the ridge of his nose and exhales a slow breath as though willing himself calm. “And I can’t imagine how you’ve been living since then.” He shakes his head, traces a knuckle down Geralt’s chin, the barest hint of a smile beginning to pull at his lips. “But I’ve forgiven you before, and something tells me I’ll manage it again.” Something tight and pained unfurls in Geralt’s chest, something anxious and afraid and wanting, as Jaskier’s voice lightens the slightest bit. “You’re a fool of great measure, Geralt of Rivia, but you’re mine just the same.” When he kisses him this time, soft and sweet, it’s like coming home. “I’ll not be letting you go that easily.” 

Later, there will be talk. There will be explanations and many questions and fewer answers to be had, and Geralt will apologize over and over until his voice is hoarse and his mouth is dry. Later they will discuss the potion Jaskier mauled his mind with and the magic Yenenfer used to heal him. Geralt will tell Jaskier about the frigid waters of Skellige and Jaskier’s jaw will tighten, his phoenix fire heart rattling in his chest when Geralt talks about the long days and endless nights alone. 

But for now, in the dying light of the forgotten fire, while Roach dozes beside them, they simply hold each other, breaths mingling and bodies as close as close can be. 

_I will love you until I am dead_ , Geralt thinks, pressing his face against Jaskiers chest to listen to his hummingbird heart. 

_I will love you until I am dust._

For now, Geralt _breathes._


End file.
